


In the Rearview

by romanticalgirl



Category: Bandom, Empires, The Academy Is...
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since we have spoken face to face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Rearview

**Author's Note:**

> God, this was supposed to be hot, angry porn. Fuckers.

  
It’s a small club, which both is and isn’t his preference. If it were another band, it would be great. He loves small venues where you can get every nuance of the music, where the only people there are the ones who should be there – the hardcore fans and the ones who just wandered in, and will walk out with a CD or after buying the band a beer. But in this case, he wishes it were bigger, fuller, more anonymous.

He hangs back by the bar, watching as the band sets up. Everyone has a routine when they crew for themselves, a pattern they follow. They each have their own superstitions about taping the cords down a certain way, the amp at a particular angle, the microphone at a certain height. Sometimes people will touch the guitar on the stand before they leave the stage, or strum a certain chord even though the sound check is done.

It’s been years now, but he still recognizes Tom’s movements, his routines. He can see the neon green tape that marks the corners of his amp, and the careful line of tape, as if he’s still afraid Bill might catch it with his foot and end up sprawled across the stage like that one day in rehearsal. Some lessons you only have to learn once. Of course, if that’s true, Mike wonders what the hell he’s doing here.

He knows the moment that Tom sees him. Tom was always shit at hiding things, part of the reason everything came to a head when it did. Mike leans against the bar, drinking his beer. He’s come this far and he’s still not sure why, not sure what he intends to do, if anything at all. Tom looks at him for a moment and then moves off the stage, waiting while two other guys test the mics.

Mike orders another beer and settles on the seat, listening to the canned music. It’s a mix of modern country and heavy metal, neither of which has anything to do with Empires’ sound, and it reminds Mike sharply of touring with Kiss. He thinks it should be a comment on how not everything is a perfect fit, and that’s a lesson they’ve both learned the hard way. He’s pretty sure that Tom wouldn’t agree with him though. He’s actually pretty sure that Tom’s entire life-structure is built around not agreeing with him.

“Hey!” He leans in across the bar as the bartender comes over. “What’s the band drinking?”

“PBRs.”

He pushes money across the bar. “Couple of rounds on me, okay?”

“Sure, dude.” He takes the money to the till and then calls one of the sound guys over. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he takes the tray of beers and heads backstage. Mike’s not exactly sure where cheap, disgusting beer ranks in the hierarchy of white flags, but free beer is free beer and being a starving band living in a van wasn’t so long ago that Mike doesn’t remember that.

Empires takes the stage and starts the show, the hardcore group of fans pressed close to the stage and singing along, lyrics echoed and distorted even in the small room. Mike can never quite hear it when he’s got his headgear in and his guitar coming alive in his hands, but he can always look out in the audience and feel the crowd, see when they’re riding the same wave as the band, or when they’re crashing like there’s a storm, everyone off in their own direction. Tonight’s crowd is in sync with the band, and Mike remembers that’s the way it usually is in the smaller clubs, the smaller crowds.

The full set is about what he expects, song after song and a little bit of banter. Toward the end of the set, they play something that sounds familiar, and it takes Mike a second to place it, to remember the guitar line from long nights on the bus. It was never a TAI song, was never going to be, but he played it constantly, trying to figure it out. It’s different now that he’s not trying to fit it into whatever mold he thought TAI had made, better for it, but it feels weird to Mike, like it was supposed to be their song.

The set ends and people move away from the stage, looking for the bar and merch. Mike moves the opposite direction, toward the stage, a fresh beer in his hand. He’s sure there are people here that would recognize him if they looked at him and their brains didn’t pull the same disconnect that his is doing. Mike Carden at a show with Tom Conrad. Doesn’t happen. Fandom told him so. He smiles to himself and takes a pull from his beer. Fandom also tells him he’s dating a Jonas Brother, and he blames Tony for that 100 percent.

He hangs back, watching the band at the merch table, selling t-shirts and CDs. Sean and Tom smile at the fans, signing and laughing, posing for pictures. They both look slightly uncomfortable, and Mike can relate. Even after years of this, meeting the fans is awkward. You don’t know them, and they don’t know you, but they know enough that it’s strange. The private parts of your life are public knowledge, or open for public imagination. Bill’s got it worse than he ever has it, but it’s still there.

A few people linger, but eventually Sean heads backstage and the fans filter out, the club security guiding them to the door. Tom stands at the edge of the table and taps it twice before heading in Mike’s direction. He doesn’t say anything until he’s close enough that it’s unlikely anyone will overhear them. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say. I mean, there’s the whole adult route. The ‘hey, Carden’ thing. But mostly I keep getting stuck on the ‘what the fuck are you doing here’.”

“That’s fair.” Mike kills his beer and rubs his hand over his mouth. “Good show.”

“Thanks.” Mike can tell Tom wants to be an ass, say something about how Mike’s opinion doesn’t matter for shit, but the truth is, when the person you hate honestly compliments what you do – when they _know_ what they’re talking about – you can’t help but get a thrill out of it. Mike remembers the first time Tom heard Mike’s guitar line for ‘Same Blood’, and the grudging respect he’d offered, muttered under his breath. “Our west coast shows are usually pretty busy, since we don’t get out here as often.”

“The west coast conundrum.” Mike nods. “Plenty of people, but not enough towns you can legitimately hit, so fewer shows, so fewer trips out, so more upset fans and busier shows so you can’t spend as much time as you’d like with the fans after.” It’s something they’ve heard since the beginning, something every band has. It’s even worse now that he lives on the west coast and he gets to experience it first hand.

“Yeah.” It’s taciturn, and Mike figures if he has something to say, he doesn’t have much more time to say it in. He’s never been good with words, he’s more melody, and talking to Tom is even worse. All the words he does have get stuck in his throat, caught on words he said in the past.

“Let me buy you another beer.”

“I think they want to close up.”

“Right.” Mike sets his empty bottle on a table and shoves his hands into his pockets, not sure what else to do with them. That’s another difference between him and Bill, another thing he and Tom have in common. When you have a guitar in your hands, you never have to second-guess yourself, your gestures. “Well…”

“Why are you here, Carden?”

Mike looks at him, and sees how little Tom’s changed really. Same scruffy hair, same half-shaved look. Mike knows there’s a camera strap over his shoulder, a Nikon resting against his hip. It could be five years ago or ten years from now. “I don’t know, really.”

“Maybe next time we pass through, you’ll have figured it out.” Tom turns to go, and Mike gets the hollow feeling in his stomach, the one too familiar from argument after argument, demanding William take sides.

“Tomrad. Wait.”

He stops walking but doesn’t turn around. Mike exhales roughly and rubs the back of his neck. You and Andy are still friends. You and Bill and Adam are okay. I guess I just thought maybe it was time.”

“Time to what? Say you’re sorry? Because I find it hard to believe you’d even consider letting those words slip out.” Tom’s jaw pulses. “Being sorry would be admitting you were wrong.”

“You know, it’s possible that maybe I’m not as much of an asshole as you think I am.”

Another pulse and Mike’s not sure if Tom’s going to punch him or not. “I know exactly how much of an asshole you are.”

“No. How much of an asshole I _was_. People grow up, Tom. People change. Sometimes they’re not the same person at 26 that they were at 22. Look at the people around us. Pete’s…there’s Ashlee and Bronx. Bill’s got Evie. We fucking toured with _Kiss_ , man. You think that doesn’t change you? You think you’re not different?”

“I know I’m different. I just don’t know if I believe you are.”

“Wow. Okay. Well then. Good show, Tomrad. Rot in fucking hell.” He turns on his heel and fumbles in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He can’t smoke inside anymore, and he doesn’t smoke much anywhere else, to be honest, but right now he needs to inhale something heavy and rough into his lungs to keep the anger down. It would only piss him off more to prove Tom right, that he wasn’t any different than the hotheaded kid Tom used to know.

“Carden.”

He lights the cigarette and takes a deep breath of it, feeling his lungs rebel against the smoke. He hates cell phones in the audience now, makeshift lighters that turn everything green and gold instead of hazy yellow and orange. It’s like he heard Paul Stanley mutter one night – it’s not fucking Freebird if something’s not catching fire.

“Mike.”

He turns and looks at Tom through the haze of smoke. He learned smoke rings on tour, practicing them until he got them perfect, but he’s lost the skill, so he just blows out a cloud that hangs in the cool California night. “What?”

“Why did you come here?”

“You don’t want to hear it. You’ve never wanted to hear what I had to say. You only heard what you wanted to, every time, because it fit what you needed to believe.”

“Right, because Mike Carden is never wrong. He’s never to blame.”

“Do you really fucking think I think that? You think I’m really fucking thrilled that my singer left without telling anyone that he was going and swallowed a bottle full of pills? You think I’m glad that it took four months for our drummer to talk to me? You think it was all me, Tom? You think I was the only one who didn’t see it was working. You loved Bill and you hated the rest of us. You hated our words and our music and you wanted something different. You wanted the band to change just for you, and you didn’t get that it wasn’t going to.”

“Why shouldn’t I have had input? Why couldn’t I be part of the creative process?”

“Because you wouldn’t stand up to him. You wouldn’t go against him. You acted like he was the best thing on Earth and he could do no wrong, but he _could_. He _can_. That’s why he and I work, that’s why we need it to be us. Because he’ll aim for the outer edges of the universe and I keep him in our galaxy.”

“Why is reaching farther a bad idea?”

“Because you can’t do that shit when you’re a tiny band from Chicago that most people figure only got signed because your lead singer sucked Pete Wentz’s cock. You can do that if you’re Bruce Springsteen or Prince or fucking Michael Jackson, but you can’t when you’re us. We don’t have that freedom. We haven’t earned it, okay? He’s amazing, and I wish I could give him the go ahead, but we can’t. He needs someone to rein him in, because his dreams are too big not to get destroyed.”

“That’s you’re excuse for kicking me out of the band?”

“No, it’s not a fucking excuse. It’s the truth. And the reason we kicked you out of the band was because you didn’t fit, you didn’t belong, you didn’t want to be there. And you got to play the martyr, and now you’re doing your own thing, so maybe we can stop this whole…childish bullshit about who hurt whose feelings, okay?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that, because you said it was over now, that it was over now. I forgot that everything comes down to what you say.”

“Fuck you, if anyone was a diva in this scenario, it was you and Beckett. Him playing both sides against the middle and you milking it for all it was worth, using his vanity to get closer, try to get him on your side. Must have fucking killed you when it didn’t work.”

“Me? God, you thought it was me trying to get close to him? All he wanted to do was get away from you. You were like a disease, Carden. The fucking bubonic plague, poisoning every single one of us. The only time it was safe was up on the stage because you couldn’t spew your anger and hatred when you were playing.”

“It was ours and you couldn’t just let it settle in. You couldn’t just sit back for one fucking record and see how it worked. You couldn’t see that it was tough and we were trying to do something, were trying to find our footing again. You couldn’t see that he was scared and that the words weren’t there, and having someone else yammering at you again and again and again that they can write it, they can fix it…you think you fucking _helped_ , man? And what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to feel? You come in and you fucking usurp me. We bled and choked and sweated for this and you come in and act like it’s your band, like we’re something you made, like he was your best friend, like you had a claim to him.”

“And now we get down to the nitty gritty.” Tom huffs a laugh that hangs in the air like Mike’s smoke. “Did I steal your boyfriend, Carden?”

“No,” Mike’s surprised at how quickly the anger drains away. He’s tired of being mad, tired of being hurt, tired of being the bad guy. “But I lost my best friend because of it, because of you, because of what happened, and we’re just now finding that again. Nobody got away unscathed.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for not feeling sorry for you.”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.” Mike runs a hand through his short hair and sighs. “I came to say I’m sorry, and that I hope you guys do really well.” His stomach roils from the cigarette and he crushes the pack in his hand. “Andy left the band. Another era over, and we’ll start again.” He swallows hard and stares past Tom to the yellow hazy light of the streetlamp. “Something new every time.”

Tom stares at him for a long time then shrugs his shoulders, his too-long hair hanging in his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

Mike watches him go, walking back to the bar and the van in the alleyway where the rest of Empires waits for him. Mike inhales and closes his eyes, blowing out a breath as across the street a neon sign flickers. “Yeah. Thanks.”  



End file.
